CALIFORNIA’S HIGH-SPEED RAIL ON TRACK TO OPEN IN 80 YEARS
“Six years after the controversial California High-Speed Rail Authority was approved by the California Legislature, just 7% of the estimated 1,100 pieces needed for the first leg to travel 130 miles across sparsely populated Central California farm country has been acquired. At this rate, it will take another 80 years before construction can start.
Because California has had a horrible record of starting and then later abandoning freeways, power plants and other highly expensive infrastructure projects, the California Legislature was forced to add a series of provisions when it passed AB 3034 to ensure the train did not get partially built and then become a “stranded investment.”
Those provisions required that the train must have “sustained revenue,” and travel at operating speeds of at least 200 miles per hour in a “usable segment” between at least two stations. But rather than using the extensive freight train tracks that crisscross California, state planners decided to build their own dedicated tracks.”
Street, Chris. Breitbart 10 November 2014.